Volume 108 January, 2016 PCLinuxOS Get A New Look For Your Multimedia Backup Player: It! Strategies

Get () GIMP Tutorial: An Entire Convert A Photo To A Sketch With

And more PCLinuxOS Magazine insPidaege..1. Table Of Contents

3 Welcome From The Chief Editor 5 PCLinunxOS Backup Strategies 11 Screenshot Showcase 12 Get (Download) An Entire Website With wget 14 Screenshot Showcase 15 ms_meme's New Year's Resolution 16 Game Zone: Conflicks Revolutionary Space Battles Donate To PCLinuxOS 18 PCLinuxOS Recipe Corner Community Supported. 19 Screenshot Showcase No Billionaires/Millionaires. No Corporate Backing Or Funding. 20 Get A New Look For Your Multimedia Player: Skin It! 25 Screenshot Showcase Click here to make a one-time donation through Checkout. 26 GIMP Tutorial: Convert A Photo To A Sketch 28 PCLinuxOS Family Member Spotlight: Aleph Or, click one of the amounts down below to make a monthly, recurring donation. 29 Screenshot Showcase 30 Tip Top Tips: Fix SlimJet Privacy (It's Tracking You By Default) 32 ms_meme's Nook: Texstar And Me 33 Solving Audio Problems With YouTube Videos On PCLinuxOS 35 Screenshot Showcase 36 Playing Drakensang Online In PCLinuxOS 39 Southwest Twice Baked Potatoes 40 PCLinuxOS Puzzled Partitions 43 More Screenshot Showcase

PCLinuxOS Magazine Page 2 Welcome From The Chief Editor

'Tis the season to make “New Year’s Resolutions.” Between 40% and 50% of us will make them. I am not a member of that group, however. The only “resolution” I make every year is to not make a New Year’s resolution, and I’ve been quite successful, every year. It also saves a lot of disappointment.

There will be resolutions to lose weight. There will be resolutions to quit smoking. There will be resolutions to quit drinking alcohol. There will be resolutions to love more, hate less, be less judgemental, be more tolerant, think more, etc. Virtually everything is up for grabs.

Unfortunately, and despite the best of intentions, most resolutions will be nothing more than a distant memory by month’s end. In fact, it’s estimated that at least 25% of New Year’s resolutions will fall by the wayside just one week into the New Year. Nothing quite like starting off the New Year with a broken promise – to yourself, nonetheless.

If you break your New Year’s resolutions, don’t despair. You have a lot of company. A 2013 study out of Scranton University (yes, they really do study stuff like this) finds that only 8% of New Year’s resolutions are actually kept. That means that of the people who make New Year’s resolutions, 92% break them.

The practice of making New Year’s resolutions started over 4,000 years ago, with the Babylonians. They celebrated their New Year in March, presumably around Spring. And, it was a festive 11 day celebration. They would make promises to their introspection. That introspection allows us to The problem is, most people set unrealistic and gods, hoping to receive good favor from their gods acknowledge and vow to fix those aspects of our unattainable goals. In their mind, the goal is throughout the upcoming year. lives that we do not view favorably. It allows us to set attainable. But, in reality, it’s no more attainable than personal goals. For many, that introspection is being able to walk to Mars. Experts say that you For most of us – at least those who make New necessary. I, for one, am quite happy with my lot in should set realistic and attainable goals. Setting a Year’s resolutions (again … I’m not one of them) – life. I have “come to terms” with those personal goals goal of losing 100 pounds (or even 50 pounds) may New Year’s resolutions are an opportunity for that haven’t been achieved, and that probably never not be realistic, but setting a goal to lose 10 pounds will be achieved. by March 1 is a more realistic and attainable goal. PCLinuxOS Magazine Page 3 Welcome From The Chief Editor

These same experts say to share your resolutions (goals) with others. That way, when your friends, family and acquaintances inquire about your Disclaimer progress, you can give (will want to give) a positive report. Certainly, no one wants to look like a liar, or a 1. All the contents of The PCLinuxOS Magazine are only for general The PCLinuxOS name, logo and colors are the trademark of information and/or use. Such contents do not constitute advice Texstar. failure. No one wants to admit weakness and defeat. and should not be relied upon in making (or refraining from No one wants to look like a person who goes back making) any decision. Any specific advice or replies to queries in any part of the magazine is/are the person opinion of such The PCLinuxOS Magazine is a monthly online publication on their word, or that their word isn’t worth anything. experts/consultants/persons and are not subscribed to by The containing PCLinuxOS-related materials. It is published PCLinuxOS Magazine. primarily for members of the PCLinuxOS community. The I don’t know about you, but that sounds a lot like magazine staff is comprised of volunteers from the 2. The information in The PCLinuxOS Magazine is provided on an PCLinuxOS community. shaming yourself into compliance. Not my cup of "AS IS" basis, and all warranties, expressed or implied of any tea, thank you very much. I’m not into self kind, regarding any matter pertaining to any information, advice or replies are disclaimed and excluded. Visit us online at http://www.pclosmag.com flagellation and degradation. Nor am I into setting 3. The PCLinuxOS Magazine and its associates shall not be liable, myself up for failure or humbling myself. Life is This release was made possible by the following volunteers: at any time, for damages (including, but not limited to, without already humbling enough with all of its failures, trials limitation, damages of any kind) arising in contract, rot or and tribulations. It doesn’t need my help. otherwise, from the use of or inability to use the magazine, or any Chief Editor: Paul Arnote (parnote) of its contents, or from any action taken (or refrained from being Assistant Editor: Meemaw taken) as a result of using the magazine or any such contents or Artwork: Sproggy, Timeth, ms_meme, Meemaw If you are a person who makes New Year’s for any failure of performance, error, omission, interruption, Magazine Layout: Paul Arnote, Meemaw, ms_meme resolutions, I wish you the sincerest best of luck in deletion, defect, delay in operation or transmission, computer virus, communications line failure, theft or destruction or HTML Layout: YouCanToo keeping them. I’ll be right there, on the sidelines, unauthorized access to, alteration of, or use of information cheering you on. But, in so many ways, that contained on the magazine. Staff: ms_meme loudog introspection causes nothing but extra in an 4. No representations, warranties or guarantees whatsoever are Meemaw YouCanToo already chaotic world and life. made as to the accuracy, adequacy, reliability, completeness, suitability, or applicability of the information to a particular Gary L. Ratliff, Sr. Pete Kelly situation. All trademarks are the property of their respective Daniel Meiß-Wilhelm Antonis Komis So, once again this year I will resolve to not make owners. daiashi Alessandro Ebersol any New Year’s resolutions. Until next month, I bid Smileeb 5. Certain links on the magazine lead to resources located on you peace, happiness, serenity and prosperity. servers maintained by third parties over whom The PCLinuxOS Magazine has no control or connection, business or otherwise. Contributors: These sites are external to The PCLinuxOS Magazine and by Agent Smith Ramchu visiting these, you are doing so of your own accord and assume all responsibility and liability for such action. The PCLinuxOS Magazine is released under the Creative Material Submitted by Users Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-Share-Alike 3.0 A majority of sections in the magazine contain materials submitted by Unported license. Some rights are reserved. users. The PCLinuxOS Magazine accepts no responsibility for the Copyright © 2015. content, accuracy, conformity to applicable laws of such material.

Entire Agreement These terms constitute the entire agreement between the parties with respect to the subject matter hereof and supersedes and replaces all prior or contemporaneous understandings or agreements, written or Want to keep up on the latest that's oral, regarding such subject matter. going on with PCLinuxOS?

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PCLinuxOS Magazine Page 4 PCLinuxOS Backup Strategies

by Peter Kelly (critter) files rarely works as you would expect, and can actually cause some serious problems. A different approach needs to be taken to re-introduce those files, which we will cover later. Before performing a backup, you may want to run a According to Wikipedia, it was somebody named Connie Eble who first got the program such as Bleachbit. It will remove accumulated junk, such as temporary phrase “S**t Happens” into print and, although he never actually said it, Forrest files and caches, reducing the size of the backup. Gump made the phrase famous in the movie that bore his name. Unfortunately though, “it” does happen, so we should be aware of the fact and take suitable precautions. When to do the backup

Large corporations are aware of this and employ many IT professionals to As often as possible is the ideal answer, as often as practical is more realistic. maintain the integrity of their data. Realizing that nothing can be 100% safe, they This takes some thought. On my system, I have my home directory which, as usually have fall-back plans known as 'Damage limitation Strategies,' which stated above, contains my personal settings and some current 'work in progress' presumably means that they pass on the cost of the foul-ups to their customers. files. I also have a much larger data directory mounted within my home directory. The data directory contains most of the stuff I might need to access, along with As home and small system users, we can't do that, so we need to consider just my photo, and video collections. Other files are archived more permanently how valuable the data that may be lost, or compromised, actually is. Based on on remote hard drives. Occasionally, I add files from my home directory to the that, we can assess how we can protect the data, and how much effort are we data directory. going to put into that protection scheme. The archives get updated manually, perhaps three or four times a year, as these A regular question in the PCLinuxOS forums is 'Which program should I use to files are not likely to be needed any time soon (some date back to the 1980's). create a backup of my system?' This is usually accompanied by 'it must be The files in the home directory and the data directory need to be given a little simple to use and to set up', 'It must be automatic so that I don't have remember more attention, and this should be an automatic process. Relying on to do it', and 'When I have screwed up my system so completely as to make it remembering to do the backup is never a good strategy. My home directory gets unusable the program should automatically recover everything'. Now wouldn't backed up daily, and the data directory weekly. This works for me, but only you that be just dandy? can determine your own requirements.

Unfortunately, no such single program exists but perhaps, using several different applications, we can develop a strategy that comes close to achieving those Where to keep the backup demands. There are many reasons why you may require access to backed up files: Before moving onto the 'how' we must consider 'what', 'when' and 'where'. hardware failure, fire, flood, theft, litigation, etc. From this, it is reasonable to argue that possibly the worst place to have a backup is on the same partition of the same hard drive as the original data. The best place might be on multiple What to back up 'black box' flight recorders kept in multiple waterproof, fireproof containers locked in an impenetrable vault guarded by the military and witnessed by at least three The obvious answer to this is 'everything,' and my response is no, not everything. high court judges. We will have to settle for something in between. Why not? Because there is no point. Your personal data is a must. The home directories of you, and any other users, are also critical. Home directories The media to use really depends upon the quantity of data and the frequency of contain, among other things, all of your personal settings that make your home a backups. Floppy disks, once popular are now quite useless for today’s modern home. You don't want to lose all of that. But the system files, no. Restoring those data sizes. Optical media such as CD-ROM, are unreliable despite initial claims

PCLinuxOS Magazine Page 5 PCLinuxOS Backup Strategies of indestructibility. Tape drives are frequently used in industry for their large If I copy these files to a directory named dest with the option -l the files will be storage capacity but they are expensive, subject to stretch and breakage, and copied as hard links, which point to the original files. store the data serially. Seeking a single file for restoration is a long, slow process. Solid state storage is convenient and quick, but for frequent backups, its' limited cp -l src/* dest write cycle life span lets it down. Modern hard drives are incredibly cheap and ls -lh dest reliable, and have large capacities, so this makes them an attractive proposition. total 1.1M However, hard drives are not infallible, so for more valuable data, multiple copies of the backup should be considered. To avoid the consequences of fire, flood and -rw---r-- 2 pete pete 100K Nov 26 14:20 file_a -rw-r--r-- 2 pete pete 1.0M Nov 26 14:17 file_b theft, one copy should be kept 'off-site.' (If the building burns down, then that's bad. If all your records and data get burned in the fire, it's a disaster). Off-site However, if I issue the command du (disk usage) with the -h option to report could mean another building or, increasingly popular, cloud storage. human readable sizes, then I see this:

du -h How to do the backup 1.2M ./src 4.0K ./dest There are too many 'backup solutions' to name them all, but if you Google around 1.2M . to find out what backup applications other people are using you will find that the name crops up many times. The command line rsync is my own personal Directory dest is using only 4k of space for 1.1M of files! favorite, but there are graphical versions such as and available from the repositories which simplify its use. The difference between 1.1M reported by ls and 1.2M reported by du is because du reports not file size, but the space used on the drive. Files are stored in blocks Rsync will keep two data storage areas, a source and a destination, of space, usually 512 or 4096 bytes for hard drives, so that a file of even synchronized. The big advantage of rsync over a simple copy is that it will copy only one still requires a full block. over only what has changed. This can mean that the destination gets steadily bigger as newer files are added. So, rsync has an option to delete files on the If I delete the original files: destination that are no longer on the source – a true synchronization. rm -f src/* Automatically deleting files from a backup is not always what you want. A week or ls -lh src so down the line and you may regret it, but you can't let the backup grow in size total 0 unchecked. The solution that I use is to do five incremental backups using hard links to existing files to save space. Before performing a backup, each of the Then issue the du command: existing backups are moved up one place with the oldest backup disappearing. This gives me a 'five backup' period of grace. The newest backup always du -h 4.0K ./src contains at least a link to all available files. Let me demonstrate (skip this part if 1.2M ./dest you are familiar with hard links and file storage). 1.2M .

Example: Now directory dest is the largest. This is because the links still point to the files, which in turn, still take up the same amount of space. What I deleted was the I have a directory named src with two files: original links to the files, the names under which they were created. A filename is simply a hard link to the file's metadata, and therefore to the file itself. Only when ls -lh src the last link to the file is removed is the file 'deleted.' In fact, at this stage, only the total 1.1M space on disk taken by the file is marked as available, but no data is removed until over-written by a new file. But we no longer have a link to where the file data -rw-r--r-- 2 pete pete 100K Nov 26 14:20 file_a is stored on the disk. -rw-r--r-- 2 pete pete 1.0M Nov 26 14:17 file_b

PCLinuxOS Magazine Page 6 PCLinuxOS Backup Strategies

The results

The following are the results from backing up my data partition to a USB external drive. This partition currently weighs in at 220GB, with a little over a half million files.

The size of the partition:

# du -sh /home/pete/data/ 220G /home/pete/data/

The time taken to perform the backup:

# time data_backup.sh real 6m6.955s user 0m5.073s sys 0m26.040s

Six minutes for a backup over a USB 2.0 interface to a sata-II hard drive is acceptable. The initial backup will take much, much longer than this (probably about two hours with this setup), but subsequent backups record only the changes.

The size of the five backups: Applying this to rsync, we can allow the utility to 'delete' files no longer in the source as we still have the links to them in the older backups. Also, as we are # du -sh data_backup.* only saving links to existing files, we only increase the overall size of the total 220G data_backup.1 backup scheme by the size of new files and the minimal size of the links. When 11G data_backup.2 one of the older backups is finally removed, we reduce the overall backup size by 5.7G data_backup.3 removing the last remaining links to files removed more than five backups ago. 3.7G data_backup.4 25G data_backup.5 Using hard links to produce a series of incremental backups can certainly save time and space, but it also has another advantage. If a file is corrupt, then it has Backup one reports a size equal to the full contents of the partition, showing that changed and the corrupt file is written to the backup. Normally, this would be it has links to all of the files. The other backups show additional links to removed disastrous, but this can be averted by using the hard link incremental backup files. system. Yes, the corrupted file is written to the backup, rsync has no way of knowing that the file is corrupt, only that it has changed. However, the previous 265MB total for five backups. Without the use of hard links, this would have been backups still contain the hard links which point to the original uncorrupted file, well over a Terabyte. Ten backups would use probably ~ 300MB. which may then be recovered (at least until the oldest backup containing a link to the original file data on the disk has been removed). The rsync command

The rsync utility is a terminal command that takes a lot of options to control its power. However, for non-command line users, the graphical front-ends such as grsync and Luckybackup allow you to build up the command from a graphical interface. Here I will show only the command line version as I use it. The

PCLinuxOS Magazine Page 7 PCLinuxOS Backup Strategies following command should be one line only. The backslashes are line space-saving trick. It means hard link to files in the stated directory when continuation markers. they are unchanged on the source. rsync -aAvzHX --progress --stats --delete \ Next, we tell rsync the source and destination. --link-dest=/mnt/backup/data_backup.2/ \ /home/pete/data/ \ /home/pete/data/ /mnt/backup/data_backup.1/ /mnt/backup/data_backup.1/ First the options -aAvzHX Do not forget the trailing slash on these last three lines. This is most important. -a turns on archive mode. You will want this to keep all your permissions, ownerships etc. intact. Using the command -A This preserves access control lists (ACLS), if your system doesn't use them this does no harm. I put the command into a little script that does all of the directory manipulation for me. This is nothing complicated, but you must remember that both the source -v Verbose mode, so you can see what is going on. and destination must be connected and mounted during the backup. If this is a problem you may want to extend the script to automate this, or at least issue a -z Compresses the data during transfer, how much benefit you get from this warning. really depends upon the size of files that you are transferring. Modern processors can compress, transmit and decompress a file quicker than #!/bin/ transferring an uncompressed file. Compression adds a small header file, so if the files are very small, this actually increases the file size. Usually rm -rf /mnt/backup/data_backup.5 though this is worth doing. mv /mnt/backup/data_backup.4 /mnt/backup/data_backup.5 mv /mnt/backup/data_backup.3 /mnt/backup/data_backup.4 -H This ensures that files created as hard links on the source are copied as mv /mnt/backup/data_backup.2 /mnt/backup/data_backup.3 hard links. Without this, the files, when copied back, would not be linked, mv /mnt/backup/data_backup.1 /mnt/backup/data_backup.2 updating one file would have no effect on the other. This should not be rsync -aAvzHX --progress --stats --delete \ confused with the hard link 'stategy' that we are using. --link-dest=/mnt/backup/data_backup.2/ \ /home/pete/data/ \ -X This preserves extended attributes. Few files have these set, but if a file /mnt/backup/data_backup.1 has them, you will want to keep them. * The first line simply states that this is a script that should be passed to the bash Note: the following options, known as long options, are preceded by a double shell. dash. This is not always apparent in printed text. * Then we remove the oldest backup. --progress Show what is being transferred and how much has completed. This is quite verbose and I use it only while setting up the backup * Move up each backup up one notch. system. Once the system is up and running, it is automatically removed. * The rsync command creates a new backup.1 file to replace the one that has been removed, linking unchanged files to the previous backup. --stats prints out a report of what has been done. * Use the first stated directory as the source for the files. --delete delete files no longer on the source. --link-dest=/mnt/backup/data_backup.2/ This is the option that performs the

PCLinuxOS Magazine Page 8 PCLinuxOS Backup Strategies

* Use the second stated directory as the destination for the files. Now you will have to edit two files as root. The files are in the directory /etc/postfix. Open the aliases file and scroll down towards the end where you will Running this script updates the series of incremental backups. see these two lines:

CHANGE THIS LINE to the account of a HUMAN Making everything happen according to a schedule root postfix

Now we have to automate the entire backup process. We need the data backup Change postfix to the username of the user who will receive roots e-mail. On this to be repeated every week, ideally on a Sunday morning when the computer is system, this is me. Save the file, and open up main.cf. After the line: running and there is little other traffic. For this, I use the cron system utility. I run all backups as root to avoid any 'permission denied' errors. I covered using cron # user configurable parameters in issue 57 of The PCLinuxOS Magazine, so I will only show the relevant details here. Add the line

In a root terminal enter the command myhostname = elysium.localhost crontab -e setting it to whatever your hostname is. Save the file and you are done. At this stage, the postfix service is not running, so open up the PCLinuxOS Control Unless you have already set up this file, you will be presented with an empty edit Center, and under system > manage system services, find the entry for postfix. window, press “i” to enter insert mode, and then add your entries. Mine looks like Make sure the box 'On boot' is checked, and then click the Start button. Close the this: control center.

SHELL=/bin/bash Now check that mail is working. Open a root terminal and type: PATH=/root/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin MAILTO=pete mail username HOME=/root Replace username with the actual users login name. You will be prompted for a 0 9 * * 6 data_backup.sh subject heading, and then for the body of the text. Press control-d to finish, and 30 9 * * * home_backup.sh you will see EOT (end of transmission). You will then be returned to the command prompt. If you refer to the cron article link above, you will find that I have asked cron to run the data backup script at 9:00 a.m. every Saturday, and the home backup mail pete every day at 9:30 a.m. These two files are stored in /root/bin, so that becomes Subject: mail check the first part of the PATH variable assignment. testing... EOT

Setting up e-mail Now, open a normal terminal and enter the command mail. You should see something like this (below). Type 1 to read the e-mail, or q to quit mail. The MAILTO variable is set to my own username on this PC so that the output from the scripts will get e-mailed to me for confirmation. This will happen only if [pete@localhost ~]$ mail internal mail delivery is set up which, by default, it is not. Setting up a simple mail Heirloom mailx version 12.4 7/29/08. Type ? for help. "/var/spool/mail/pete": 1 message 1 new system can be done quite easily. Open and install postfix, which will also >N 1 root Sat Nov 28 10:33 18/608 mail check pull in lib64postfix1 as a dependency. ? 1 Message 1: From [email protected] Sat Nov 28 10:33:49 2015 Return-Path: PCLinuxOS Magazine Page 9 PCLinuxOS Backup Strategies

X-Original-To: pete only changes' box in the lower left corner, and then save it to somewhere that will Delivered-To: [email protected] not be over-written, like a usb thumb drive. After the re-installation and a full Date: Sat, 28 Nov 2015 10:33:49 +0000 update, in Synaptic select 'Read Markings...' from the File menu. Load up the To: [email protected] saved list and click apply. Synaptic will then install everything that is missing. If Subject: mail check you don't want all of the files re-installed, you can uncheck them before applying. User-Agent: Heirloom mailx 12.4 7/29/08 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii From: [email protected] (root) MyLiveCD is an excellent utility for capturing a restorable snapshot of your Status: RO system, and there is now also a graphical to make it even easier. There is a 4GB maximum file size limit, although work is underway to overcome testing... this. I am unsure if this is currently working.

? q My personal favorite for full partition backups, such as an , is fsarchiver – which also has a shiny new graphical interface. More than one partition can be put into an archive, making it suitable for full system and data Testing the backup system backups. Restoration though is only by a full partition. Individual files cannot be selected, and often with data files it is a single file that gets corrupted or goes I would strongly recommend thoroughly testing this setup before trusting your mysteriously missing. The fsarchiver utility will also restore the partitions original precious files and settings to it. I set up a small directory with a few subdirectories uuid, which is used by grub to boot the system. This can help to simplify recovery and a scattering of files, set up cron to perform the execution every 10 minutes, on multi-boot systems. and then ensure that both the e-mails are received and the backups correctly performed. Try deleting a file or two, and then recover them by copying them back from the older backups. When you are confident and release the new Conclusion system for use, watch it carefully over the first cycle of backups. In my case, this means six days for home backups, and six weeks for data backups. Only then The perfect backup strategy is a bit of a holy grail, constantly sought but never can you really trust the system. Remember, a corrupt backup is as bad as no found. The system outlined here has worked for me over many years and I trust backup. it. I also make copies of the backups and keep one copy off site. Paranoid? Perhaps, but I still have my files after many years.

Recovering the system DOWNLOAD PCLinuxOS is a pretty robust system when regularly updated and kept protected from the ravages of its mortal enemy, the user. Even so, there are times when intervention is required.

If you have backed up your data files and personal settings, then the safest route is to reinstall the system from a downloaded ISO, and then to do a full update. Mate Desktop After doing this, restoring your backed up files should give you a fully working system as you remember it, but without all of the accumulated cruft that we all seem to accumulate over time.

If you decide to re-install the system but have installed lots of extra applications that you really cannot do without, then I am afraid that you will have to reinstall them. Synaptic can make this task a lot easier by generating a list of all installed applications. Open Synaptic and under the drop down File menu, select 'Save Markings As…'. Type in a suitable name for the list, check the 'Save full state, not

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PCLinuxOS Magazine Page 11 Get (Download) An Entire Website With wget

by Paul Arnote (parnote) of data and files. Also, do NOT keep “hammering LOT of options, which illustrates the power of wget. away” at the same website, over and over again. But all of those options are also a bit overwhelming You may cause unnecessary traffic, for the new wget user. We won’t cover everything Have you ever wanted to save/preserve information minimally, and you may inhibit others from enjoying you can do with wget in this article. More than you found online, but found it too difficult and time the same content. Some content should not be anything else, this article is intended to introduce consuming to download each page? Or maybe you downloaded (e.g. password files, credit card you to wget, and get you discovering how to use it. found it too tedious to print out each page, either on information, etc.), and it’s considered “poor ‘net your printer or as a PDF file? Or maybe you needed citizenship” to access data and/or content that you So, let’s take a look at a wget command. We’ll break to backup one of your own ? normally wouldn’t have access to. it all down after you see the entire thing. The entire command is typed on one, single line. Never fear, because wget can save the day. With So, with those warnings out of the way, let’s try to wget, we can download an entire website, or just gain a basic understanding of wget and how to use wget -x -r -np -k -v part of a website. I do have to admit that the it. http://pclosmag.com/html/Issues/201511/ -P “inspiration” for this article came from a 2008 /home/parnote-toshiba//PCLOSMag/ Journal article. Wget is a command line tool (ah, don’t shy away if you’re a GUI kind of guy or gal). If you type Let’s dissect the command. Obviously, we start with CAUTION! Do NOT use this on a very large website, wget --help into a terminal session, the first thing the wget command. Next, the -x tells wget to force or a website with very large files! You will likely run you’ll see is this: the creation of directories. The -r tells wget to out of storage space (or at least wonder where a recursively read all of the directories found under our very large chunk of it went). Plus, it’s going to take Usage: wget [OPTION]... [URL]... starting point. Then, the -np option means “no some time to download all those files – and even parents,” telling wget to not download the contents longer for the large files. Even a site like The Then, that is followed by a few thousand of directories higher in the directory hierarchy. Next, PCLinuxOS Magazine website contains over 2 GiB (exaggerated) options. Without a doubt, wget has a the -k tells wget to convert the links in the files to

PCLinuxOS Magazine Page 12 Get (Download) An Entire Website With wget work on local storage. The -v turns on verbose output, which gives you a lot more information about the progress of the file downloads.

Then, http://pclosmag.com/html/Issues/201511/ specifies the starting point for our download from the website, and corresponds to the directory on the website that contains the information we want to obtain. On the magazine website, each month’s HTML files are in the /html/Issues directory, with each month’s files in a subdirectory specified by the four-digit year and two-digit month. Thus, to download the HTML version of the December 2015 issue, you could change 201511 to 201512, and to download the HTML version of the March 2010 issue, you could change 201511 to 201003.

Finally, the -P /home/parnote-toshiba/Downloads/ PCLOSMag/ option tells wget where to save the files it downloads. In this case, it is in my /home directory (/home/parnote-toshiba), in the /Downloads directory, in the /PCLOSMag subdirectory. What you enter will depend on properly naming your /home directory, and the location you want to save the files Notice the URL address line. is displaying the local file … and all the links work, too! you download. everything. Another is the -O option for specifying a specific field to the website, if you’re on a site that This command will download almost all of the files filename for your download (yes, wget can also be requires a username and password. Finally, the -m that make up the HTML version of the November used to download single files, too). Again, it isn’t option will mirror the entire website to your local 2015 issue of The PCLinuxOS Magazine to the compatible with the -k option. I’m sure there are computer, starting from your specified starting point. directory you specify on your computer. There are other incompatibilities that I haven’t discovered yet. You’ll be able to get everything except those files that aren’t downloaded, such as the ads that directories that are marked as off-limits by the appear in each issue. They reside in a different Of course, given all of the options available for wget, Robots.txt file. directory that has been labeled as “off limits” to bulk there are some other commands you might also be gathering programs. Those “off limits” directories are interested in. First, -D pclosmag.com would tell Wget is definitely a very handy tool to have in your specified in the Robots.txt file that is on the wget to not follow any links outside of the online tool arsenal. I hope this introduction helps you magazine website. pclosmag.com domain. Second, -p, the short begin to get a grasp and understanding of the command for --page-requisites, tells wget to get all immense power of wget. I urge you to explore some There are some wget command options that aren’t the images, CSS style sheets, scripts, etc. of the many other available options of wget. compatible with one another. One is the -nc option, necessary to display the HTML page locally on your which stands for “no-clobber.” It isn’t compatible with computer. Third, the -o option allows you to specify a the -k option, which converts all the links so that the log file for wget to write out to, instead of displaying offline files work as they should. The “no-clobber” linuxfordummies.org the information in your terminal screen. Fourth, option allows you to pick up where you left off, not --user [username] and --password [password] overwriting files that have already been downloaded There Are No Stupid Questions (replacing [username] and [password] with your should you become disconnected before retrieving specific username and password) will pass along the PCLinuxOS Magazine Page 13 The PCLinuxOS Linux Docs Magazine Linux Man Pages Created with Scribus DOWNLOAD SSccrreeeennsshhoott SShhoowwccaassee Mate Desktop

Linux Training Courses & Classes

A magazine just isn't a magazine without articles to fill the pages.

If you have article ideas, or if you would like to contribute articles to the PCLinuxOS Magazine, send an email to: [email protected]

We are interested in general articles about Linux, and (of course), articles specific to PCLinuxOS. Posted by trytip on December 4, 2015, running KDE.

PCLinuxOS Magazine Page 14 ms_meme's New Year's Resolutions HAPPY 2016 NEW YEAR A resolution is a promise A stiff upper lip You swear to yourself And single-mindedness With courage you must pledge Tenacity of purpose Don’t put it on a shelf And a bit of stubbornness

Pluck and perseverance Passion and persistence Are vital for your declaration Will see you through the year Steadfastness and staunchness Strain strive and struggle And dogged dedication To your vow you must adhere

Fortitude and firmness Without intestinal fortitude And sincere staying power And grit wrenching guts Earnestness and energy This dauntless darned decision To enact it every hour Will soon drive you nuts

PCLinuxOS Magazine Page 15 Game Zone: Conflicks Revolutionary Space Battles

by daiashi As a general of one of these interstellar empires, System requirements: you have the power to change the outcome of this war. But will you fight for the glory of your imperial Fully updated PCLinuxOS and Steam house … or the redemption of mankind? Hardware: The game universe is a futuristic alternate history of OS: PCLinuxOS the European Renaissance that combines elements from the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries with science Processor: 2.0 GHz Dual Core fiction and an oddball sense of humor into a stylized, absurdist world that never takes itself too seriously. Memory: 4 GB RAM

Conflicks can be played in a single-player campaign Graphics: OpenGL 3.0+, 2.1 with ARB mode where missions are linked together by a story, extensions acceptable as well as in multiplayer competitive battles. Network: Broadband connection Pledge your allegiance to Greater-Britain, the Celestial Empire, the Sacred Alliance or the Sublime Storage: 3 GB available space About The Game Gate and harvest metamatter in the name of your emperor, or join the Chk’Rathii and lead the About The Company April 1st 1519. A month before his death, Leonardo Revolution against those poultry-hoarding galactic Da Vinci managed to decrypt ancient Alchemists’ despots! Located on Montreal's south shore, Artifice Studio is secrets and succeeded in transmuting egg yolk into an independent studio specialized in the creation of Metamatter, a marvelous substance allowing one to Main Features original videogames. Their focus is clearly on increase intellectual capacities and influence the gameplay innovation and immersive universes. Their space-time continuum. The course of history would • Original game mechanics based on the principle of first game project, Sang-Froid – Tales of be changed forever. flicking. Easy to learn, hard to master! Werewolves, was released on Steam on March 2013 and was critically acclaimed. With the power of Metamatter unleashed, war broke • Play 4 different factions with dozens of ships, each out and henhouses spread to every corner of the with its own unique powers! Some Gameplay Screenshots Earth until the planet became too small. As the empires of Earth moved into space to establish even • Show your panache and compete against the best more henhouses on new planets, war followed. admirals of the galaxy in competitive battles For, in Conflicks: Revolutionary Space Battles, he (against other players or an AI) complete with who possesses the most chickens controls leaderboards! Metamatter and dominates the galaxy! • Play solo and immerse yourself in an epic But while these powerful armies fight for control, campaign unveiling a rich and captivating story! innumerable fowl toil in henhouses and dissent brews. Rumor has it that presently even the • Upgrade your ships’ special powers by chickens wish to rise up... accumulating Steam Achievements!

PCLinuxOS Magazine Page 16 Game Zone: Conflicks Revolutionary Space Battles

search box and enter “conflicks” (without the quotes). Click on and download the demo. If you have updated your system, including graphics drivers, you should be good to go.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/419400/?snr=1_ 7_7_230_150_1

Support PCLinuxOS! Get Your Official PCLinuxOS Getting It To Run Merchandise Today!

Install Steam (if you don’t have it installed already), then start it. You will need to create a new account, if you do not already have one. Once you have Steam up and running, go to the store tab. Click on the

PCLinuxOS Magazine Page 17 PCLinuxOS Recipe Corner

Cheddar Bacon Chicken Tenders Ingredients Options: use chicken breasts cut into stips instead of chicken tenders. Add garlic, pepper and onion 1 egg powder for some extra flavor. Serve with sour cream, 1/2 cup Progresso™ plain panko crispy bread ranch or honey mustard for dipping. crumbs 1/2 cup finely shredded Cheddar cheese (2 oz) 1 3 oz cooked real bacon bits or pieces 1 package (14 oz) uncooked chicken tenders (not breaded)

Chive and onion sour cream potato topper, if desired

Directions

1. Heat oven to 400°F. Spray large cookie sheet with cooking spray.

2. In shallow bowl, beat egg. In large resealable food-storage plastic bag, place bread crumbs, cheese and bacon. Dip chicken into egg. Place in bread crumb bag; seal and shake to coat. Place chicken on cookie sheet.

3. Bake 15 to 20 minutes, turning once, until chicken is no longer pink in center and bread crumbs are golden brown. Serve with topper.

PCLinuxOS Magazine Page 18 SSccrreeeennsshhoott SShhoowwccaassee

Available in the following desktops: KDE LXDE Posted by Orion on December 6, 2015, running Xfce. Gnome e17

PCLinuxOS Magazine Page 19 Get A New Look For Your Multimedia Player: Skin It! by Paul Arnote (parnote) them in a 37 MB ZIP file, containing 120 different You can also extract them to skins. If you want to try your hand at creating your ~/.local/share/vlc/skins2 (remember that ~ specifies own VLC skin, check out this link. You can also a user’s /home directory). Done this way, the skins Most users are familiar with quartet of multimedia download and install the VLC Media Player Skin are available only to the particular user who has the players: VLC, MPlayer, SMPlayer and UMPlayer. Editor from here. It is a JAVA application that skins in the specified directory in their /home They all definitely do a fine job of playing back our requires JAVA Runtime 6 or greater (so it should be directory. However, if every user has this directory in multimedia files. But out of the box, their interfaces safe to install to a directory in your /home directory, their /home directory, each user may have and use a can become a bit stale and boring. All of them are and run from there), and allows you to create/edit different skin for VLC. functional with their default appearance, even if their VLC skins without having to know the internal default appearance(s) are rather boring. structure of VLC skins.

Fortunately, all of them can be “skinned.” That means giving them a new look, jazzing things up a bit. Hopefully you can find one that better suits your individual idea of how the interface should look and function.

VLC

Most people will be content using VLC as it is out of the box, so to say, with its default interface.

The above is just one of those 120 skins that are available for VLC. No, it really is not Player. Instead, it’s VLC skinned to look like . To use any of the new skins, change the radio button from “Use native style” to the “Use custom skin” Before you can use the VLC skins, you must first setting. Choose the skin you want to use by extract the skin files to your computer. Under selecting the “Choose…” button and selecting it from PCLinuxOS, most skins for VLC are in the the available skins. Then, select the “Save” button. usr/share/vlc/skins2 directory. Be aware that you will have to switch to the root user in order to place the skins there. Done this way, all of the skins are MPlayer available to all the users of the computer. However, only one skin may be chosen for all users on the There’s a LOT to love about MPlayer. It’s . agnostic. It’s free of any of the encumbrances and But, you can make it look however you want. The debate about vs. Gtk vs. anything else. And, only way to download the VLC skins are with all of PCLinuxOS Magazine Page 20 Get A New Look For Your Multimedia Player: Skin It! when nothing else will play an odd media file, download each skin separately and individually. Your available MPlayer skins will be listed in the MPlayer is usually there to save the day. Once downloaded, extract the skin file(s) from the “Skin browser” dialog box. Simply select the one you archive. If you’re so inclined, you can create your want to use, then select the “OK” button. own MPlayer skin.

Next, as the root user, copy the extracted (and SMPlayer uncompressed) folders to the /usr/share//skins directory. Repeat for as SMPlayer is a Qt based, MPlayer based program many of the skins as you downloaded, copying each that attempts to make a lightweight multimedia folder to the aforementioned directory. application. It does an admirable job, as SMPlayer has come to my “rescue” several times … like when nothing else would play an oddball multimedia file and I got bogged down with MPlayer’s complexities.

The thought that immediately comes to mind when looking at the default skin for SMPlayer – to me – is “utilitarian.” Yes, it definitely gets the job done, even if its initial appearance is a bit outdated and tired looking.

While not totally unattractive, you might just be able to do better. The default MPlayer skin is known simply as “Blue.” Right click your mouse in the MPlayer window, and select “Skin browser” from the menu.

By going into SMPlayer’s Preferences settings, you can improve on the initial appearance. From the “Options” menu, select “Preferences.” Or, select the “Preferences” icon on the toolbar. Or, just press Ctrl + P. Once there, select “Interface” from the selections at the left side of the Preferences dialog box. The ICY skin (above) is one of many different skins available for MPlayer. Unlike with VLC, you can PCLinuxOS Magazine Page 21 Get A New Look For Your Multimedia Player: Skin It!

Afterwards, select “Skinnable GUI” as the GUI, and then select which of the five skins that you want to use from the dropdown list.

are Mini GUI and Skinnable GUI – of which the latter one is grayed out and unavailable … at least initially.

You will need to install the SMPlayer skins manually. At this time, they are not in the PCLinuxOS You can also find some new (and quite good) skins repository. However, not only are they readily and themes in the SMPlayer forum. Many of these available (five skins exist), they are also safe and skins and themes don’t seem to show up anywhere easy to install yourself. First, download the skins. else. In particular, check out the “Artwork and Then, extract the archive to its own directory. Launch Themes” section of the forum. Another place to look a terminal session as the root user from the themes is on the DeviantArt site. Just search for “ directory (you can only perform this action as the skin” … without the quotes, of course. root user), and issue the following commands (each is entered on its own line): Just one note here about SMPlayer’s Preference settings. Just hitting “Apply” will definitely apply your changes, but they will NOT “stick around” for the Just changing the “Style” setting to GTK+ smooths [root@parnote-toshiba themes]# mkdir /usr/share/smplayer/themes next time you launch SMPlayer. You MUST hit the out the edges a lot for me, especially since I use a “OK” button in the Preferences dialog box to make Gtk+ based desktop with Xfce. [root@parnote-toshiba themes]# cp -r ./* your changes stick the next time you start SMPlayer. /usr/share/smplayer/themes/ Under the GUI setting, you can also change from There are some more options available when it using the “Basic GUI” to using the “Mpc GUI” (shown comes to customizing SMPlayer. Reset the GUI above). This will make SMPlayer look more like the preference back to Basic GUI, if you have changed interface in (hence, the “mpc”). it. Then, download the new themes for SMPLayer It definitely cleans things up a lot, too. However, this (you can also install the themes via Synaptic, and will seriously limit our ability to further change the skip these next few steps, if you like). Just as with look of SMPlayer, so we’ll stick with the “Basic GUI.” VLC, you must download them all. You cannot The “Icon Set” setting is largely ignored by the Mpc download just the ones you want/like, as with GUI, except for the time readout in the lower right MPlayer. Uncompress the archive into its own folder. hand corner. Other choices under the GUI setting Open up a root terminal (you must issue these PCLinuxOS Magazine Page 22 Get A New Look For Your Multimedia Player: Skin It! commands as the root user), go to the new folder Additionally, a similar message is popped up where you previously uncompressed the archive of periodically when running UMPlayer. SMPlayer themes, and enter the commands below (again, each command is entered on its own line):

[root@parnote-toshiba themes]# mkdir /usr/share/smplayer/themes

[root@parnote-toshiba themes]# cp -r ./* /usr/share/smplayer/themes/

(Note: you will only have to do these commands if you have downloaded the theme files and are installing them manually. Also, if you already created the /usr/share/smplayer/themes directory when you installed the skins in the previous step, you can skip the first command.) If you’re interested, you can keep abreast of SMPlayer development by visiting the official SMPlayer blog page.

UMPlayer

UMPlayer, for all intents and purposes, is a dead project. However, it does still exist in the PCLinuxOS repository. Below is what appears on the UMPlayer home page: Hmmm. I think it’s so sad when a developer just up and walks away from an open source project. But UMPlayer - The Universal Media Player is an application based on SMPlayer 0.6.9 created by Ori Rejwan, with some extra features like Youtube playback.

The themes are selected from the “Icon set” setting. But now, the UMPlayer project seems dead (no changes So, selecting a different icon set will change the since December 2011). Youtube doesn't work anymore, icons used with the Basic GUI, and in some cases, it and some people asked the SMPlayer team to fix will even make some changes to the window style. UMPlayer. So, we made this release.

Above (top of next column) is SMPlayer with the However, we recommend to use SMPlayer instead. It H2O theme applied. Notice how not only the icons includes most of the features in UMPlayer, like support that SMPlayer uses has changed, but also the color for Youtube and skins, plus some other features that have of the window background behind the icons. Most been recently added and that are not available in themes don’t bother much with the window UMPlayer. So, if you're an user of UMPlayer, it's highly background color (that I have found), and focus recommended to migrate to SMPlayer. more on changing the appearance of the icon set used. PCLinuxOS Magazine Page 23 Get A New Look For Your Multimedia Player: Skin It! then, it’s not the first time, and it won’t be the last SMPlayer doesn’t recognize the UMPlayer skin. time something like this happens. Creation of the RCC file, along with the compiled *.qrc file, is above my pay grade … in a manner of So, the striking resemblance to SMPlayer is no speaking. I’ve been unable to locate any sort of accident. One nice thing I like about UMPlayer is guide on how to create or compile skins for that it includes five skins when you install it. There’s SMPlayer. nothing more to install, unless you want a custom skin that isn’t provided. Summary

Now, armed with this information, anyone can tailor their multimedia player experience by applying an already made skin, or making their own.

Now … who brought the popcorn?

extracted the archive file, and issue the following command (all on one line):

cp -r ./[Name_of_directory] /usr/share/ umplayer/themes/ Does your computer run slow? Hence, if the directory where I extracted the UMPlayer comes with five ready to use skins. In the Ambiance theme is named Ubuntu_Ambiance, the Are you tired of all the "Blue Screens list above, they are the Black, Gonzo, Mac, Modern command will be: of Death" computer crashes? and Vista. I added Greybird and Ubuntu_Ambiance. To change the skin, simply open the Preferences cp -r ./Ubuntu_Ambiance /usr/share/ Are viruses, umplayer/themes/ dialog box (Ctrl + P, Options > Preferences, or click adware, & on the Preferences icon on the icon toolbar), and select the “Interface” category. Once you issue the above command for each spyware slowing UMPlayer theme you wish to install, each theme will you down? You can find additional skins on GNOME-LOOK.org. immediately become available for use. Going there, I only found two (regular MPlayer skins Despite the common lineage with SMPlayer, it Get your PC back will NOT work) specifically for UMPlayer. Greybird to good health appears to be the same as the Mac skin. However, seems to be much simpler to create skins for the Ubuntu_Ambiance skin appears to be quite nice UMPlayer than it is for SMPlayer. UMPlayer simply TODAY! and unique. You will also find a couple (and only a uses a CSS file, named main., to control the skin couple) additional skins on the DeviantArt site. Just … and roughly 40 specially created image files. Get search for “umplayer skin” (without the quotes). Because of its common lineage, I was hopeful that SMPlayer would be able to utilize UMPlayer skins. Once you download a skin, decompress the archive But no, that would have been too easy. SMPlayer file into its own directory. Then, open a root terminal requires the construction of a RCC file that contains (you must perform the following actions as the root all of the icons, and that RCC file is then compiled to make a *.qrc file. Without that compiled *.qrc file, user), travel to the parent directory where you Download your copy today! FREE! PCLinuxOS Magazine Page 24 International Community PCLinuxOS Sites

Netherlands SSccrreeeennsshhoott SShhoowwccaassee

Turkey

Denmark Czechoslovakia

Italy

Poland

Posted by OnlyHuman on December 6, 2015, running e19. Brazil

PCLinuxOS Magazine Page 25 GIMP Tutorial: Convert A Photo To A Sketch

By Meemaw To highlight the details, go to Colors > Auto > 'Equalized’. Now double-click the layer you just Equalize. created (the copy) and rename it 'Adjusted'.

I found a tutorial that will allow you to change a We need to bring out the details of our sketch. This photo to a sketch. While you wouldn’t do this very means we will darken the blacks and lighten the often, it might be fun for a child to color a picture that whites, so we are going to use the Levels tool that means something to him. we used in November. Go to Colors > Levels and adjust the Input Level sliders until you're happy with Pick out a photo and open it in GIMP. Make it a the results. This is one of those times you need to simple photo, rather than one with loads of detail. I use your own judgement about how it looks, am using a photo of a parade I attended last year. because every photo will need something different. The finished product should look sort of like this:

We want a black & white sketch, so we need to get rid of the colors that are left in the photo and convert them to grey. Click on Colors > Desaturate and hit OK.

Navigate to Filters > Edge-Detect > Sobel. Make sure all the checkboxes are selected and hit OK. It Another method is to click on Colors > Curves and looks dreadful, but we have a few more steps. adjust the curve until it looks the way you want.

We’re also going to use a layer mask on this. Make a duplicate of the Equalized layer by selecting it and clicking Layer > Duplicate We are going to create a duplicate layer (Layer > Layer. Move this layer to the Duplicate Layer, or press Shift+CTRL+D). Let’s top (with the layer chosen, also name each layer so we don’t get confused. click the up arrow in the Double-click the original layer (the one that doesn’t Layers dialog), double-click, say Copy in the Layers panel) and rename it and rename it 'Masked'.

PCLinuxOS Magazine Page 26 GIMP Tutorial: Convert A Photo To A Sketch

We will invert the colors on this new layer. Click on Now, create a new, white layer (Layer > New Layer the newly created layer (which should be on top), or click on the New Layer button in the Layers and select Colors > Invert. dialog), and place it underneath the Masked Layer. Your sketch should now look similar to the one below.

It is starting to look a bit like a sketch! However, it looks a little grey when we want it to be brighter.

We're going to apply the adjusted layer as a mask. While the shadows under each truck didn’t come out Highlight the Adjusted layer and select Edit > Copy. exactly the way I hoped, the trucks themselves look Now highlight the Masked Layer, right-click, and good. I’m sure your project will look great! select Add Layer Mask. In the dialog box that pops up, check the Selection radio button, then press 2 Add. Now, select the Masked Layer you just created It's easier than E=mc and click Edit > Paste. Right-click the 'Floating It's elemental Selection' layer that appears in the Layer box and click Anchor Layer. It looks kinda weird again, but It's light years ahead we’ll fix it. It's a wise choice It's Radically Simple It's ...

PCLinuxOS Magazine Page 27 PCLinuxOS Family Member Spotlight: Aleph

as told to YouCanToo photography workflow is made only with PCLinuxOS (Rawtherapee and Gimp).

What is your name/username? Luis Orden Ciero

How old are you? 49

Are you married, single? I am married to Salud since 1992

How about Kids, Grandkids? A daughter, Salud (22 years old - geologist), and a son Luis 15 years old.

Do you have pets, what is your favorite? Not now, but I am the uncle of Noita, the dog of my guitarist.

Are you retired, still working and if working, what do you do? I am Professor of flute at the Superior Conservatory Where did you go to school and what is your Why and when did you start using Linux? in Seville, Spain. Also, I am a soloist and I play education level? I started Linux in 2010. I hated all the Windows concerts around the world. I studied music at the Conservatorio Superior problems and decided to try . After a week, I "Manuel Castillo" in Seville. I am a flute Professor. started with Crunchbang, and after a few months I Where do you call home? What is it like? discovered PCLinuxOS. Since then I have used IE: weather, scenery What kind of things you like doing? hobbies, PCLinuxOS in all my machines as my main OS. I live in Olivares, a town very near to Seville, Spain. travel, fishing, camping? Seville is a typical and touristic Spanish site, very hot I am very lucky. My hobby is my work, the music. I My desktops are IceWM in three installations, in the summer but very, very beautiful and full of can play music with friends and travel around the Openbox on one, KDE on one, and LXDE (on the history and traditions. world. Also I like Linux and photography. Now, all my notebook of my wife).

PCLinuxOS Magazine Page 28 PCLinuxOS Family Member Spotlight: Aleph

SSccrreeeennsshhoott SShhoowwccaassee

More info: www.luisorden.com

I play the flute on these two CDs. You can listen to it on Spotify: http://open.spotify.com/album/7mBbRgAl1s5BbIxj8vi a90 http://open.spotify.com/album/4Rdiizyo8dwZodgpLq Eup8

PCLinuxOS Family Member Spotlight is an exclusive, monthly column by youcantoo, featuring PCLinuxOS forum members. This column will allow "the rest of us" to get to know our forum family members better, and will give those featured an opportunity to share their PCLinuxOS story with the rest of the world.

If you would like to be featured in PCLinuxOS Family Member Spotlight, please send a private message to Posted by tuxlink on December 18, 2015, running LXDE. youcantoo, parnote or Meemaw in the PCLinuxOS forum expressing your interest.

PCLinuxOS Magazine Page 29 Tip Top Tips: Fix Slimjet Privacy (It's Tracking You By Default)

Editor’s Note: Tip Top Tips is a new monthly column in The PCLinuxOS Magazine. Each available. This is the same as adblocker plus for Chrome). Second, move to the month, we will feature – and possibly even expand upon – one tip from the PCLinuxOS privacy section, and select what you see in these snaps. forum. The magazine will not accept independent tip submissions specifically intended for inclusion in the Tip Top Tips column. Rather, if you have a tip, share it in the PCLinuxOS forum’s “Tips & Tricks” section. Your tip just may be selected for publication in The PCLinuxOS Magazine.

This month’s tip comes from PCLinuxOS forum member trytip.

I see in Synaptic these words of encouragement, but they are FALSE.

Slimjet does, in fact, track your every move, just like . The default settings are NOT GOOD, and you need to fix them if you want to use Slimjet and protect your browsing. The first thing to do is enable the adblocker, and customize it with tracking protection lists (choose your language list if it's

PCLinuxOS Magazine Page 30 Tip Top Tips: Fix Slimjet Privacy (It's Tracking You By Default)

Below are my settings: Now delete the contents of the .cache/slimjet directory, and under Slimjet’s History/Clear menu, clear your browsing data to start fresh.

Full Monty ...

Everything you might want or need – plus the kitchen sink!

PCLinuxOS Magazine Page 31 ms_meme's Nook: Texstar And Me

Had that Windows called XP Got that Vista what a choice Tried that Win7 what the heck Never did work and it weren't free And for sure I didn't rejoice Had to write a great big check Kept me fraggin' All those updates coming in Now at last I shout whoopee What a mess Won't recommend it There'll be no more Always left me in distress To my next of kin Windows for me

Ha ha ha Texstar and me Ha ha ha Texstar and me Ha ha ha Texstar and me PCLinuxOS I love thee PCLinuxOS I love thee PCLinuxOS I love thee Ha ha ha Texstar and me Ha ha ha Texstar and me Ha ha ha Texstar and me PCLinuxOS I love thee PCLinuxOS I love thee PCLinuxOS I love thee

MP3 PCLinuxOS Magazine Page 32 Solving Audio Problems With YouTube Videos On PCLinuxOS by Alessandro Ebersol (Agent Smith) But, you can change the default ALSA setting, to point to the computer audio output and forget the HDMI output. One of the most annoying things about Linux is having to deal with audio. Yes, despite PulseAudio, Not very obvious, but not too difficult either. which brings more problems and headaches than it is worth, often we install our favorite Linux, PCLinuxOS, on computers with HDMI output and Asoundrc - The extra sound configuration file. there goes the sound down the drain. As listed here, asoundrc is a configuration file which Something does not work, the sound does not come is usually located in the $HOME/.asoundrc directory. out the browser, or YouTube videos are muted. Then For each of the computer users, there is a file we proceed to use Pulse Audio, and apparently the asoundrc. This file allows greater control over the problems end. sound output, sampling rates and redirecting standard output. But maybe not, since PA also inserts some problems at the other end. Notably, emulators and other programs that do not work with PA, or Windows This is the file we will need to modify to change the programs via Wine are left with horrible sound. default ALSA output.

We end up with two choices: Either use PA and have sound in all applications (and horrible sound in Wine What happens is that during the configuration when and other programs), or we don't use PA, and have are HDMI devices connected (or built into the the system is installed, the first sound card is good sound in all programs, but muted in some chipset). identified as the standard output. Often, it is the applications (You Tube, for example). HDMI sound card.

It was a matter of choice, but without being able to HDMI: A second sound source have it both ways: Whether one was happy or ate Changing the Audio Standard Configuration the cake, but to be happy and eat the cake was Yes, the HDMI audio output is a second sound impossible ... source. When the sound is configured, during Now that we know why things are as they are, we installation of PCLinuxOS, usually the HDMI output will learn how to change this setting that we do not Until now … is automatically selected as the default output. want.

Yes, you can enable audio in PCLinuxOS, even with That would be great if it were not tragic. It turns out How to do that? Follow the steps below: HDMI output, so that only the computer's sound card that this would only make sense if we all had is used, and the sound will not be muted in the monitors with audio output. Because this feature is 1. Identify the sound cards recognized in the system. browser or other programs, without resorting to PA. common only in TV's, desktop computers setting the I'll give the example of the configuration that I work standard output to HDMI adapter is useless, causes on an HP machine with Intel chipset (sound, But how? First, let's see how the audio works, and great frustration, and makes the user to resort to graphics and HDMI output). why you don't get audio on "speakers" when there PulseAudio.

PCLinuxOS Magazine Page 33 Solving Audio Problems With YouTube Videos On PCLinuxOS

Open a terminal and type: cat /proc/asound/cards # ------Well, some details should be noted: ------My result was: # for jack alsa_in and alsa_out: looped- * First of all, watch which is your sound configuration back signal at other ends in cat /proc/asound/cards. For this example I wrote pcm.ploop { 0 [HDMI ]: HDA-Intel - HDA Intel HDMI type plug here was for an Intel chipset video and audio. There HDA Intel HDMI at 0xf7c34000 irq 45 slave.pcm "hw:Loopback,1,1" is a need to study each case, as there may be a 1 [PCH ]: HDA-Intel - HDA Intel PCH } very different combination of hardware (Nvidia video HDA Intel PCH at 0xf7c30000 irq 46 cards, external sound cards or USB microphones, pcm.cloop { and etc …). But the instructions are the same, and Two sound cards are recognized. Card “0” is the type dsnoop you only need to adapt to each case. HDMI output, and card “1” is the regular computer ipc_key 219348 sound card output. slave.pcm "hw:Loopback,1,0" * Always make a backup of your file .asoundrc } before changing it. If there is any problem, it may be 2. Now we have to see how the sound system is reversed easily by restoring the backup. configured in .asoundrc file. # ------Finally, disable PulseAudio, which is a dead weight, Do so in a terminal instance - type cat .asoundrc # default device eating computer processing, when it is so simple to make the change. My result was: pcm.!default { type plug slave.pcm "aduplex" Ok? # playback PCM device: using loopback } subdevice 0,0 Further reading: pcm.amix { Now, we see that the sound output is set to the type dmix ipc_key 219345 HDMI output, in the #default device section. http://dallarosa.tumblr.com/post/19626256742/fixing- slave.pcm "hw:Loopback,2,0" no-sound-in-browser-problem-on-linux } 3. Now, with a text editor, open your .asoundrc file and look for the #default device section. Change http://www.alsa-project.org/main/index.php/Asoundrc # capture PCM device: using loopback what is in the file for the following: subdevice 0,1 pcm.asnoop { # default device type dsnoop Update: Our dear “friends” at Google changed the ipc_key 219346 YouTube API, to force HTML5 videos in YouTube. pcm.!default { Well, HDMI audio doesn't work well with Firefox; the slave.pcm "hw:Loopback,0,1" type hw } card 1 videos are muted, but it works great in Chrome. } Hmmm, that reminds me of MS and its old tricks. To # duplex device combining our PCM devices have sound enabled with YouTube playing in Firefox, defined above We changed the default audio output, HDMI (card 0) you have to do one thing now: install an addon in pcm.aduplex { to the computer sound output (card 1). Firefox, called YouTube Flash Player for Firefox, type asym version 1.4.0. playback.pcm "amix" capture.pcm "asnoop" Now, end your session, logout and login again, and } the sound of Firefox browser, Google Chrome and Ok? Install it and you’ll have sound again in Firefox so many other programs will go through the YouTube videos, with HDMI capable machines. computer's speakers, not the HDMI interface, and there will be no more silence. Ehehehehehe.

PCLinuxOS Magazine Page 34 International Community The PCLinuxOS PCLinuxOS Sites Magazine

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Posted by jogurtmen on December 30, 2015, running KDE.

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PCLinuxOS Magazine Page 35 Playing Drakensang Online In PCLinuxOS

by Alessandro Ebersol (Agent Smith) Drakensang Online is an action RPG game in 3D, free to play, that features extraordinary 3D graphics and effects and heralds the next generation of free-to- play online browser games.

With the ability to customize your character, skills and magical powers as never seen before in a browser game, join your comrades to wage a brutal war against evil.

Continuing in the subject of free-to-play MMORPGs in PCLinuxOS, today I'll discuss the game Drakensang Online.

The game world is visually impressive, with picturesque medieval towns, green forests, muddy swamps and dark caves. It was developed by Bigpoint, from Germany, using its in-house engine "Nebula3," impressing players with a level of graphics and 3D effects never before seen in browser games.

PCLinuxOS Magazine Page 36 Playing Drakensang Online In PCLinuxOS

Players must join forces and fight as one team in order to survive the treacherous dungeons of Drakensang Online.

Players can meet up in public gathering places, such as cities or military camps, and get to know each other, take on challenges together and create plans to march into battle united. In addition to cooperative gameplay, players can also test their courage against each other in PVP arenas located in the capital of Kingshill, and find out who is the most powerful hero in Drankensang Online.

The game accepts PVE and PVP, and there are specific PVP's servers, where the emphasis is on competitive combat.

Now, how to play this great game in PCLinuxOS?

There is a Play-On-Linux script to install and play Drakensang Online in Linux. However, there is an easy and effective method of playing DRO in PCLinuxOS, without all the extra work of Play-On-Linux.

Before I start with the how-to, however, I will analyze how the DRO works. Drakensang Online has impressed its fans with a variety of different skills for the characters, exciting and challenging quests, an impressive arsenal of weapons and magic, and over 100 hours of playable content. Drakensang Online, a java browser game (said no one ever).

Analyzing how the DRO client works, I came to the following conclusions.

It is a game that runs inside a browser by a Java wrapper, whose function is to call the thinclient.exe program. This a program in # that is the client running the game.

And I was all happy because I was going to play a Java RPG in my Firefox. How sad when I found out how the game client works. By having a client in C#, win32 does not run on Linux (despite the Java wrapper).

The need for Java means it does not run on Google Chrome browsers as well. But it can be played both in the browser and in PCLinuxOS.

Now follow the cake recipe.

You’re gonna need:

1 - Wine (in repos) The game invites players to take on arms as freedom fighters: Dragonknights, fearless Warriors; Spellweavers, wise and magical; Rangers, archers and hunters 2 - Winetricks (in repos) and Mechanics, dwarves who use technology as a weapon (in a Steampunk style) to wage a brutal war against the dragons and wild terrible monsters of the 3 - Firefox browser for Windows. (://download.mozilla.org/) Underworld. PCLinuxOS Magazine Page 37 Playing Drakensang Online In PCLinuxOS

4 - Java virtual machine for Windows(JRE), version 7 (jre-7u80-windows- i586.exe) – Available here. The PCLinuxOS Magazine Now, follow these steps: Special Editions! 1) In Winetricks, install DirectX 9, as explained here.

2) Now, install the Java virtual machine for Windows, via Wine. Note that it must be that specific version, since it's a version that works 100% with Wine on Linux.

3) Install Firefox for Windows.

And it is ready.

In Wine's Firefox , go to http://agathon.drakensang.com/, register an account, then log into your account. Then, when you get to the player panel, click Play Now, followed by ready. You will be transported to the kingdom of Dracania, to fight the forces of evil, and in PCLinuxOS.

I played this game a lot, and, for best results, it is necessary, in the settings, to lower the quality of the game in fullscreen, play simple shadows and enable good quality for graphics. After some time, the game is laborious to level up the character, especially after level 40, and sometimes the game manifests one "pay-to-win" aspect - very mercenary-like. But it's fun, with great graphics, and it’s good to play with friends and make new friends.

Enjoy yourself playing this awesome RPG in PCLinuxOS!

Get Your Free Copies Today!

PCLinuxOS Magazine Page 38 Southwest Twice Baked Potatoes

by Ramchu Directions:

Prep 30 min. Cook 15 min. ready 45 min.

Cook potatoes in the microwave until tender enough to pierce with a fork, about 8 minutes. Allow potatoes to cool, then slice in half lengthwise.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Scoop out the centers of the potato halves, leaving about 1/4 inch of potato in the skin to keep its shape. Place skins on a greased baking sheet and place the potatoes you scooped out into a bowl. Mash the potato in the bowl with milk, salt, pepper and butter until smooth. Stir in the green and red peppers, jalapeno, garlic and sour cream until evenly distributed. Mound the mixture into the potato skins. Sprinkle cheese and bacon bits over the top.

Bake for 15 minutes, or until the cheese is starting to toast. It's easier than E=mc2

Add a little zest to your baked potatoes It's elemental It's light years ahead Ingredients: It's a wise choice 4 baking potatoes 1/2 onion, diced Visit Us On IRC It's Radically Simple 1/2 cup milk It's ... Salt and Pepper to taste • Launch your favorite IRC Chat Client software 3 tablespoons butter (xchat, pidgin, kopete, etc.) 1 green bell pepper, seeded and diced 1 red bell pepper, seeded and diced 2 jalapeno peppers, seeded and chopped • Go to freenode.net 1 tablespoon minced garlic 2 cups shredded Cheddar cheese • Type "/join #pclosmag" 4 tablespoons bacon bits 1/4 cup sour cream (without the quotes)

PCLinuxOS Magazine Page 39 PCLinuxOS Puzzled Partitions

SCRAPPLER RULES: 1. Follow the rules of Scrabble®. You can view them here. You have seven (7) letter tiles with which to make as long of a word as you possibly can. Words are based on the English language. Non-English language words are NOT allowed. 2. Red letters are scored double points. Green letters are scored triple points. 3. Add up the score of all the letters that you used. Unused letters are not scored. For red or green letters, apply the multiplier when tallying up your score. Next, apply any additional scoring multipliers, such as double or triple word score. 4. An additional 50 points is added for e

SUDOKU RULES: There is only one valid solution to each using all seven (7) of your tiles in a set to r Sudoku puzzle. The only way the puzzle can be considered make your word. You will not necessarily e solved correctly is when all 81 boxes contain numbers and the be able to use all seven (7) of the letters in H your set to form a “legal” word. s

other Sudoku rules have been followed. n

5. In case you are having difficulty seeing o i When you start a game of Sudoku, some blocks will be prefilled the point value on the letter tiles, here is a t u for you. You cannot change these numbers in the course of the list of how they are scored: l game. 0 points: 2 blank tiles o 1 point: E, A, I, O, N, R, T, L, S, U S e Each column must contain all of the numbers 1 through 9 and 2 points: D, G l z no two numbers in the same column of a Sudoku puzzle can 3 points: B, C, M, P z be the same. Each row must contain all of the numbers 1 4 points: F, H, V, W, Y u through 9 and no two numbers in the same row of a Sudoku 5 points: K P 8 points: J, X d

puzzle can be the same. a 10 points: Q, Z o 6. Optionally, a time limit of 60 minutes l Each block must contain all of the numbers 1 through 9 and no n should apply to the game, averaging to 12 two numbers in the same block of a Sudoku puzzle can be the w same. minutes per letter tile set. o Possible score 286, average score 200.

7. Have fun! It's only a game! D PCLinuxOS Magazine Page 40 PCLinuxOS Puzzled Partitions PCLinuxOS Crossword Puzzle: January 2016 New Year's Eve

1. party or other gathering 2. full of helium, and fun to have 3. another party activity 4. one activity during the celebration 5. New Years song 6. bubbly drink 7. small pieces of colored paper 8. something that is done every year 9. what we are celebrating 10. one way people celebrate New Year's 11. the time when the fireworks go off 12. many cities have them 13. horn or something similar 14. many people explode some 15. a location in New York where the party is broadcast

Download Puzzle Solutions Here PCLinuxOS Magazine Page 41 PCLinuxOS Puzzled Partitions New Year's Eve Word Find

K L F B I L E F T G M Q Q O K T V O B T N Y T Q U E J C N D F E I O N J P A S S B T I B W W M O S R D I C C C E W L H U Auld Lang Syne U W I N I W D D X Z Q T M G X B L S D P R D D D L M O N B I U G W P N P K F Y Q V I S A D A K U Z E T B M J P U D B L K ball W Y P L Q E D Z N L J C Z G F L Z K Y B A M V M E T G S F S balloons T Q G R L I Y B J Z X N E K W Y Y F S Y E I V E S A P C Y W celebration B Z L B P R O D A B A L L O O N S Y W M X D D B I R O Z I P champagne M Q V E S X P W H G Q I A I M A U L D L A N G S Y N E Y A N Q H C T M R S Y A X D P U L U S I Q E E P I L K F M O E S I cheers G Q X L O R P V B F H L Q X H H G Z Q S Y G S E I S K U H S confetti Z G Y W R O A S X P U M G I R I U W G N N H T A E S U B T C countdown L X W T K R J S A T G K I L P L R Z O N Y T Y Z M V S C L S dancing J E I S T P P T Z J K X M W T I N Y S W I Y F D N B X O U S J U Z X O C F L M B W O K M T Q B M R R D K M E A X Y C R Y extravaganza B K E R G D Z L F N I C A I I P A R A D E P A T Q D F E B A Father Time A R Q Y I K M K V N E K T S C G T V E X V S Q M A H L F J R fireworks L G Y Z I O L B O L E I G R U W G F Y R R Q W F Y K A B A N games L V D M A G M I E R M N D E Z P A K W L K Z T L R R X S Q G I B W B B E T B P E I N G M K T W Q E X R L Y A K M R N X N kiss Z Q S L B I R Q S C O M L A H A J L N Q D R P E N H W E M A memories J E E F D A X S N I E I K E P B D M G K M S A B S O N W M K merrymaking F J I A T V Q A S I F S R R P M Y J Y U K B F D D O F G I H midnight D X R I R U D E G Y P T T T O C A V S N N P J T D I X T X L W T O W A G F A A I I U P S A L D H H F N O N O R M B Z M L noise Z N M R H K R Y M M Z V Z V A O X A C P B U J E Y P D R R Z New Year's F C E B G M N N E B I B D D I O I C K H O L W W R I S L G T parade G P M L W C M K S T R E S C L T T J G C L O H A M L N A U K sparklers R T B Y U X F H J X R W K J U D U O O I R B L J B N F Z Z P G F Y F S Q J V C D Z S W Q Z A E H Z K A F O P C G L B M A streamer O R R Y H W Q R Z C I M T O T Y W F S R H U I J G H X Y Z H Times Square toast tradition

Download Puzzle Solutions Here PCLinuxOS Magazine Page 42 More Screenshot Showcase

Posted by francesco_bat on December 18, 2015, running KDE. Posted by Crow on December 18, 2015, running KDE.

Posted by BBA-Present_Arms on December 16, 2015, running Trinity. Posted by Aleph on December 19, 2015, running icewm.

PCLinuxOS Magazine Page 43